Diamonds are a Girl's best friend
by Youknowitall
Summary: This is an AU Linstead story with some romance and mystery and a little bit of magic maybe. Erin is a thief and Jay is, well Jay, with a bit of an upgrade. I can't tell to much without giving everything away. Give it a try and drop me a line with your thoughts. Happy reading. Rated T ( for now ) ;)
**Note: I wanted to thank Vivi, without you, this story wouldn't have happend. Also a big thank you to my Beta Laurabelle2930. :)**

 **I own nothing, except for the idea.**

 **Happy reading...**

 **Diamonds are a girl's best friend**

Chapter one **The Castle**

It was dark outside, big rain drops beat against the tall windows in the homes opulent library. The room was filled with dark wooden bookshelves, filled with books as far as she could see. There were at least ten rows of shelves if not more, she didn't have time to count them all, The small light of the torch not even reaching the end of the room. She tiptoed to another row, careful to not make any noise. She was looking for the hidden safe she'd learned would be in this room. All she had to do was find it and get back to the party that was in full swing in the east wing of the house. Technically she knew that the west wing should be empty but she didn't want to risk being seen. She knew this was risky especially because she'd brought a date to the party. She'd done this to avoid drawing any more attention than necessary to herself by being a single woman at an event like this. A roll of thunder followed by a flash of light lit up the room and for a split second she could swear that she saw a shadow opposite from her position. She hid behind the shelf she'd been standing near and waited. She held her breath for a few seconds until the room was lit again. There was nothing. No one except her. Relief flooded through her body and she got up, she lost balance and her slim form almost hit the floor, she managed to steady herself on the shelf, a few books dropped out and fell onto the stony floor.

She almost yelped when she felt her phone vibrate in the small black clutch she'd brought with her. Her date, great! She needed to get back to the party. Now that she thought of it, this would have been better if she hadn't brought anyone to the party. But her intel didn't say that this house was a castle with rooms bigger than her own apartment. She should have studied the map before she took this heist. She shook her head and headed back through the long corridors of the house. The walls were filled with creepy pictures of people and landscapes she couldn't quite make out in the dark. She was on the second floor of the house. The corridors were longer than she remembered. She came to a halt to take in her surroundings, She wasn't sure this was the right way back. She took out her phone and after pressing a few buttons she found what she was looking for. The blueprints. The house had looked a lot smaller from the outside that it actually was. Stupid castle, she thought.

Suddenly she saw light at the end of the hallway, a window, great, she thought. She took a wrong turn; there wasn't a window on her way to the library. Erin walked back to where she'd come from. Her feet started to hurt; these black pumps weren't made to walk in for so long. She took a right and finally reached the stairs that led downstairs. With quick steps she was on the main floor again. The walls were painted in a dark red matching the ivory color of the floor. She moved a little slower now. The last thing she now needed was someone to ask her questions about her being sweaty or her heavy breathing. She took in the corridor in front of her, there still were a few pictures hanging on the walls but not as many as before. The facility was more modern in this part of the castle. Maybe it had something to do that the man who lived here. All she knew about him was that this home had belonged to his parents and that they died a few years back. Also that he had a brother but he was missing since before the parents had died. She came to a halt in front of a painting. It showed a handsome young man with light brown hair, his skin white and pure… almost pale. His smile brought wrinkles to the edges of his eyes. The picture fascinated her and she caught herself staring at it for mere minutes. It looked so real and also different from all the other paintings she'd passed on her way. This one was special, she could feel it, it had something mysterious to it but she couldn't tell what it was. The drawing of the man seemed to consume her, almost as he wanted her to stay. She didn't know for how long she was standing there when she felt her phone vibrating against her palm again. She ignored it. Her eyes wandering back on to the picture locking gaze with painted clear blue ones.

" This sector of the house is private." A low husky voice next to her said. Her body stiffened as she slowly turned around to see who'd caught her. The darkness in the corridor made it almost impossible to see, all she could make out were the tall man's features. He took a step towards her so she could see the scars on his left jaw, down to his neck disappearing under the hem of his collar. He was invading her space, his face now just inches from hers. The way he stood there should have scared Erin, but for some reason it didn't. She could feel his breath on her skin and a shiver ran down her spine, she tried not to show how a man she couldn't even see had such an effect on her. Suddenly she felt the urge to lift her hand and touch his scars, she suppressed it and forced it back down, somewhere deep inside her body.

And then it dawned upon her, it was the same feeling she had when she looked at the painting. And the strange thing was, she wasn't scared of it. It felt like an invisible bond wriggling itself around them.

He seemed furious standing there in front of her in his tux all tall and stiff. His eyes draw her in from head to toe as she stood there in her little black dress not daring to move a muscle. His scent invaded her space and she could smell expensive cologne that was spicy and manly. She turned her head and looked at the painting again and then back at the man in front of her. The man in the painting looked young and untroubled, but the man in front of her looked severe and his eyes were ice cold.

She stepped back and straightened herself to her full height which really wasn't very tall. She locked eyes with him and spoke as secure as she possibly could. " I am sorry, I didn't mean to wander around, I was just looking for the toilets and apparently I got lost." She could see some tension leave his shoulders but his eyes remained cold.

" This is a great painting of you, the artist really captured your handsome face there." She pointed at the painting and then waving her hand in front of his face. He just stood there in the middle of the corridor watching her with an eyebrow raised. His lips pressed together in a thin line.

" Well It was nice to meet you but now I need to get back to my date, If you could excuse me, I'm sure he's already sent a search troupe after me." His face remained stoic, watching her every move with an intensity that Erin couldn't place. She stared back, somewhere captured in this battle not daring to blink or look away. Maybe a minute or two later, she couldn't tell, she stepped to the side and moved past him. She rushed back to the party not once turning around, but feeling his eyes on her until the darkness consumed her petite form.

Erin found her date at the bar. He was leaning against it with a drink in his hand that looked a lot like bourbon. She approached him with quick steps. She came to a halt in front of him, he looked angry. Another clap of thunder roared over the house as she approached him, her hand touched his forearm as she spoke. " I'm sorry. I got lost searching for the ladies room. This house is huge." She smiled at him. His gaze softened and he smiled back at her. " Care to dance?" She held out her hand and he took it. She had a fun time after her little gone not as planned mission and the strange meeting she'd had just minutes before. She found herself having a good time, something she hadn't done in a long time. Her date, as she liked to call him, she'd found on the internet. She needed someone she knew nothing about so she wouldn't get too attached. It worked out for her perfectly also because she could give a fake name and nobody cared because everybody was doing it just like her. She liked the anonymous touch it had to it. Being alone, not getting involved with someone was a necessary evil her job required. Erin made her peace with that a long time ago. But that didn't mean she couldn't have some fun once in a while.

They danced song after song, she couldn't feel her feet anymore. She had planned to stay just a little longer after her mission was completed to not seem suspicious but something other than the music, free drinks and her enjoying herself seemed to keep her in the house. It was that warm feeling she felt as she floated over the dance floor. The house seemed to be trying to keep her in its warmth. She couldn't find the strength to leave and she strangely didn't want to until a sudden strange feeling spread out over her chest. What was she doing here? Why was she listening to a feeling and not to her head? Why ignore the one thing that was telling her to get out of here? What was happening to her? It felt like her heart and her head were feuding. Once was begging her to stay, while the other told her to run. That this house was creepy and that she should get out of here as fast as she could.

The small hairs on the back of her neck started to rise up like antennas, and she could feel his eyes watching her. The skin on her back was tingling with sensation. Erin let her eyes wander around but she couldn't see him, there were too many people dancing and walking around in this ballroom. The sudden need to leave struck her again and without a word she left her date's embrace as fast as she could, running out of the castle and into the cold and stormy night, through the huge garden until she reached her parking space. Rain hit her skin hard and within seconds her clothes were drenched. Flashes of light engulfed the cloudy sky giving the whole scene something even creeper. At this moment she didn't care how it must have looked to the other guests, she just felt the urge to get as far away from this place as possible. Her breath heavy, her body shivering while she drove her car back to the city where she lived. Why did she not bring a coat?

She drove and drove until she could make out the lights of the city skyline. It looked so beautiful it made her forget what she was actually running from until another flash of light hit the sky and brought her back to the present.

Her mind was running as she thought about all the strange things that had happened this evening. The house which seemed to want her to keep inside, the painting that wouldn't let her go, the man who suddenly stood beside her and tried to scare her with all his coldness as he invaded her space. It all was so weird that she had a hard time believing it herself. The events still made no sense as she tried to piece them together. Still no matter what she did nothing she could come up with seemed to end with a logical explanation.

Her skin started to hurt from the cold she could feel the cold wet rain enter every pore of her skin. Shivering she switched on the heater of her seat and waited for the to do its work. That would give her a cold, she could feel it. The sound of her teeth chattering together filled the car. She needed to get home.

It was already 2 am as she opened the door to her apartment and switched on the lights. Her clothes were soaking wet, her actually curly hair clung around her face and small raindrops rolled down her neck. Her body still shivered from the cold. Without thinking twice, she kicked of her shoes and made her way into her small bathroom next to her bedroom. She turned on the water and got out of her dress. She looked at herself in the mirror, her make up was almost gone and her mascara was all over her face. She cleaned her face from all the traces of the make up and got into the shower.

She got lucky today, she could have gotten caught, but she didn't. If she only would have studied the blueprints before she got to the party. Erin slapped herself in her mind for not doing the job right, now she still didn't know where the safe was hidden, and that meant she had to get into that house two more times. One to get the location of the safe, and two, break it open and steel the stuff without getting caught. This mission wasn't as easy as she thought it would be at first. And then there was the thing with the house and the guy that she couldn't quite understand. She would need to be extremely careful if she wanted to pull this off clean.

Twenty million dollars in diamonds, was all she could think about. With that money she could pay back all the debts she got when she was gambling, and then she could get out of the city that had stolen her childhood and given her nothing! She dreamed of a new start somewhere where nobody knew who she was, far away from this city.

Since she was six years old she was on her own, her mother, Bonny, had died of an overdose on a Wednesday morning. Erin had found her in their small apartment in Southside Chicago after school in the bathtub, unmoving. Two nights and three days she sat beside her dead mother, trying to wake her but she just wouldn't wake up anymore. When the friendly Mrs. Jackson from across the hall came to check on them; bringing over some leftover lasagna, she'd found the small girl with the big brown eyes sitting on the cold floor with nothing on but a dirty red t-shirt that almost certainly belonged to her mom. The plate with the lasagna on top of it scattered to the floor, splintering into a million pieces, covering the stony bathroom tiles. The elderly woman had picked Erin up and held her tightly in her arms as they waited for the police to arrive. Erin didn't understand what was going on at that time. She thought that it had been her fault that her mom didn't wake up anymore.

The south of Chicago was fucked up, people who lived here were either addicted to drugs or just poor. In Erin's case both of that was true. She didn't know where her dad was, her mom had always told her that he was a military man and that he had died protecting this country. When Erin was a little girl she imagined her dad saving innocent people and protecting them but as she grew older she started to get angry at her dad. She was angry at him for leaving her with a mother like this, who didn't care about her or her life. She was so angry at him, it nearly destroyed her future. She stopped going to school, ran away from her foster family who was only taking care of her and six other kids for the money.

After that she was living in different families but nobody wanted to adopt a troubled child like her, so she ran away and came to live on the streets. She liked it there, but as a girl she had to be extra careful. Once she let her guard down, trusted somebody she shouldn't have, and it had almost cost her, her life. One day, she almost got raped and killed. Victor a man in his forties had saved her. He was the one who showed her how to be invisible and stay alive. How to steal without being caught and how to run so fast that nobody would be able to stop here if it was necessary. Victor was an ex cop who was mistreated by the force and held a grudge towards them ever since it happened. He used his knowledge and his connections to build up a small criminal business. He took Erin in, gave her a roof over her head, a small bed to sleep in, three meals a day, and most importantly, he listened to her when she needed an open ear and never judged. Over the years he became a father figure to her, but she knew that he also was after the profit. She had to learn to not trust anybody fully, not even the man who had taken her in at her weakest.

The water started to run cold so she got out of the shower and wrapped a fresh dark blue towel around her body. She dried her hair and went to bed with only a tank top and a pair of underwear on. As she laid there on her side, she watched the wall opposite from her. Shadows from the world outside passed by and finally with a peaceful feeling in her chest, she fell asleep.

 **Leave me your thoughts, comments and kudos guys!**


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